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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28224663">mistaking candles for headlights</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/kathikon/pseuds/kathikon'>kathikon</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Generation Kill</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst with a Happy Ending, Brad is Going Through It (tm), E-mail, Gen, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Light Pining, M/M, Past Relationship(s), Post-Break Up, Post-Canon, Reconciliation, References to Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Regret, happy-ish ending</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-12-23</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-12-23</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-10 15:34:17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>3,385</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28224663</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/kathikon/pseuds/kathikon</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>you meet people you love them and then you lose them and you never see them again. and it's inevitable and it happens to everyone and there's nothing you can do about it— someone has to leave first. it’s a very old story, and there is no other version of it.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Brad Colbert/Nate Fick</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>5</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>38</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Heavy Artillery Holiday Exchange 2020</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>mistaking candles for headlights</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/Impala_Chick/gifts">Impala_Chick</a>.</li>



    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Title from the song "a deer mistaking candles for headlights” - crywank</p><p>No disrespect/assumptions are being made about any real people. This is a work of fiction based on the HBO Miniseries starring Alexander Skarsgard, Stark Sands, and others.</p><p> </p><p>Written for the Heavy Artillery/HBO War Holiday Fic Exchange 2020, with the following prompt ;<br/><i>Brad Colbert/Nate Fick: I never get tired of Brad/Nate getting together after Iraq (with a fair bit of pining before that). Witty banter and differing positions of power are always a plus. I love when Nate and Brad accidentally reconnect post-canon in a professional context. I also have a thing for when they write/email/text each other and try to make long-distance work. Holiday shenanigans would be lovely, especially if they involve Brad's adopted family &amp; Jewish holidays. Bonus points for angst with a happy ending. </i></p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>He can hardly believe they’re back in Oceanside.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>There’s a sort of dream-like </span>
  <em>
    <span>wrongness</span>
  </em>
  <span> to it all as he looks at himself in the mirror, MRE-thin and bruised from forty days of wearing plates that had started digging in weird after Nasiriyah, after not enough sleep and not enough food.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Brad can hardly stand it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Even by November, there’s some disjointed part of him that still thinks something’s wrong when they all came home in most of their pieces (he’s pretty sure Pappy’s missing a bit of his foot, but they're all </span>
  <em>
    <span>alive</span>
  </em>
  <span> and that was the important thing, right?). But still, there’s another, uglier part that thinks he’s got to be dead because there’s no way they all came home alive, and this is the final spasms of his brain as it shuts down, spinning up dreams and promises like the threads that tie everything together.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>That tie him and Nate together, that </span>
  <em>
    <span>tied</span>
  </em>
  <span> them together as they circled around each other like stars, endlessly, all the way across Mesopotamia.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He can’t help but feel he missed the chances he’d been presented with, but it doesn’t matter anymore.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Fick is long gone, and soon Brad will be too, off to England for two years.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It might do him some good.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Standing up to his chest in the cold water of the Pacific Ocean, the feeling doesn't go away.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The salt-thick air and coarse sand under his feet feel like a wake-up call, but in a way, he doesn’t feel like he was actually waking up— like he was still dreaming, hearing his alarm and unable to open his eyes.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Here, he finally feels okay for the first time since they came back, with the cold biting into his bones, all-consuming and full.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>No matter what, the ocean never changes. It’s always the same, always unforgiving and gentle and harsh and tender at once.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He remembers, a long time ago, someone told him that after long enough away, sometimes home doesn't feel like </span>
  <em>
    <span>home</span>
  </em>
  <span> anymore.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>For the first time, he gets what they were trying to say.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>There’s something Brad can’t describe that he feels like he’s been missing, something that’d been gone missing in Iraq, or maybe in Afghanistan.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Whatever it is, whatever it was, it doesn’t come back, and there’s no use looking for something you don’t know exists anymore, and so he lets himself sink into the surf, and stares up at the predawn sky as he drifts up and down with gentle waves, here out past the break.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>It’s the seventh of January in 2006 when he hears from Nathaniel Fick again.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Sometimes it’s hard to believe how fast time flies.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Other times, it’s easy to believe, like going to sleep after saying goodbye to the person he can’t forget, and waking up more than two years later and not remembering the green of his eyes, the soft curve of his mouth.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Brad doesn’t open the message for a week, because he knows if he does, no matter what Nate has to say, he won’t ever be able to say anything that matters for the two of them, not now, not ever.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Brad isn’t sure of a lot of things anymore, but he’s assured of this.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Nothing comes to him with this certainty anymore.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He’s curled up in a dry bathtub, cold sweat sticking his shirt to his skin, and half-delirious on Benadryl because he hasn’t gotten nearly enough sleep in days, when he finally brings himself to look.</span>
</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p>
  <span>From: Nathaniel Fick [nathanielcfick@gmail.com]</span>
  <span><br/>
</span>
  <span>To: bradley.colbert@usmc.mil<br/>
</span>
  <span>Date: Sat., Jan. 07, 2006 at 10:02 PM<br/>
</span>
  <span>Subject: [no subject]</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The radio silence is killing me, Brad.</span>
</p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>
  <span>Brad stops and rubs at his eyes when he yawns, and they water enough to make him think that maybe this is some unhinged, antihistamine-induced hallucination, but no matter what he does, the message stays the same.</span>
</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p>
  <span>From: SSgt. Bradley Colbert, USMC [ bradley.colbert@usmc.mil]</span>
  <span><br/>
</span>
  <span>To: Nathaniel Fick [nathanielcfick@gmail.com]<br/>
</span>
  <span>Date: Fri., Jan. 12, 2006 at 03:44 AM<br/>
</span>
  <span>Subject: How Did You Get My Work Email</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Frankly, the fact that you, a Harvard and Dartmouth-educated officer such as yourself reaching out to me in this manner, with no subject, address, or substantial message feels out of place. Let me know if you’ve been hacked. I’m sure Ray Person is capable of such feats.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>From: SSgt. Bradley Colbert, USMC [ bradley.colbert@usmc.mil]</span>
  <span><br/>
</span>
  <span>To: Nathaniel Fick [nathanielcfick@gmail.com]<br/>
</span>
  <span>Date: Thurs., Jan. 12, 2005 at 03:50 AM<br/>
</span>
  <span>Subject: Re: How Did You Get My Work Email</span>
</p><p>
  <span>colbertbrad@hotmail.com</span>
</p><p>
  <span>For future reference, sir.</span>
</p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>
  <span>He doesn’t know why he sends that second message.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Two years spent avoiding each other, putting up walls. It’s hardly enough he feels, but whatever comes next— he’s pretty sure he doesn’t want that on his government email.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>This is personal rather than business, and he’s always seemed to be unable to seperate them when Nate was involved.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Maybe that's part of the problem.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Brad closes his laptop and leans his head back against the cold veneer of the bathtub.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Maybe he’ll wake up in the morning and find that this was all a dream, that in fact, Nathaniel Fick had not messaged him, find that he’d actually be able to pack up the remains of his life here in England and go back to America without looking for Nate in every crowd, around every corner.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But Brad also smart enough to know he probably won’t ever stop searching.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He sees those green eyes in his dreams and he doesn’t remember if they’re the right colour or not anymore. It doesn’t stop him from trying though.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He’s come to terms with that— the fact that when he struggles with an issue and turns to look to where the Lieutenant had stood, always slightly to the left and back in his mind’s eye, there’s nobody there.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But that’s his fault too, isn’t it?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>You can run from your problems as long as you want, but you’ll just die tired.</span>
</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p>
  <span>From: Nathaniel Fick [nathanielcfick@gmail.com]</span>
  <span><br/>
</span>
  <span>To: colbertbrad@hotmail.com<br/>
</span>
  <span>Date: Sat., Jan. 14, 2006 at 6:32 PM<br/>
</span>
  <span>Subject: No I Have Not Been Hacked</span>
</p><p>
  <span>I’ll have you know I am capable of maintaining my own online security, Colbert.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Thank you for your concern.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Also, regarding your question, military email addresses are all organised in the same way. There is a finite number of Bradley Colberts in the Marine Corps.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>I figured I would try pushing my luck.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>From: Nathaniel Fick [nathanielcfick@gmail.com]</span>
  <span><br/>
</span>
  <span>To: colbertbrad@hotmail.com<br/>
</span>
  <span>Date: Sat., Jan. 14, 2006 at 7:08 PM<br/>
</span>
  <span>Subject: Re:No I Have Not Been Hacked</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Also, Sgt. Person was more than happy to provide contact information. Actually, he approached me in the first place.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Said you weren’t responding to his “lovingly crafted letters” despite the hours of work he’d poured into them, said I needed to talk some sense into you so you’d stop ignoring your “dear pal Ray-Ray”.</span>
</p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>
  <span>Brad just sighed, powering his laptop off and shoving it into his backpack.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He doesn’t have time for Ray Person’s shenanigans, and the idea of making friendly small talk with Nate isn’t high on his list of things he’d like to do. Not after how they left things.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>So instead, he pops a handful of over the counter sleeping pills and hopes that he’ll be able to make it through the flight home uninterrupted.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>California holds no respite.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>His sister, Leah, picks him up from the airport, but she’s too busy to do much besides drop him off at his house, already arranged, filled with boxes and still-wrapped furniture. His motorcycle is in the garage, she promises him before she leaves, but he knows this already.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Brad is nothing if not careful.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>At least his new place is by the ocean.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>There’s no relief there either and for some reason, the only thing he can think of is when he came home from Iraq that first time and hoped the cold water would swallow him up.</span>
</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p>
  <span>From: Nathaniel Fick [nathanielcfick@gmail.com]</span>
  <span><br/>
</span>
  <span>To: colbertbrad@hotmail.com<br/>
</span>
  <span>Date: Tues., Feb. 02, 2006 at 1:19 AM<br/>
</span>
  <span>Subject: please</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It’s been two years Brad. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Don’t you think that’s long enough?</span>
</p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>
  <span>“You should come with me.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Nate’s smiling at him over breakfast, sitting on the back steps of Brad’s porch. His plate, piled with eggs and toast and turkey bacon, is balanced carefully on his bony knees, still too-thin from Iraq, and he’s got a mug of coffee in one hand.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Brad knows how he likes these things, all by heart.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Scrambled, barely-toasted, crispy, sugar with no cream.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He wonders if that’s a way of telling someone you love them— knowing how they like all of their little mundane things, being able to make breakfast in silence.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Brad watches him through heavy-lidded eyes, gaze drifting down the pale stretch of Nate’s neck to the bruising purple mark peering out from the loose neckline of his shirt. “What about the Corps?” It’s not a question, not really. Somewhere deep inside they both know that Brad won’t leave the Marines. He didn’t for his ex, why is Nate different?</span>
  <span><br/>
</span>
  <span>But Nate </span>
  <em>
    <span>is</span>
  </em>
  <span> different. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Just not different enough.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He’s not smiling anymore, and a storm rages behind those green eyes, but Brad just turns away, watching the sun rise as he sips at his cooling coffee, and doesn’t follow when Nate stands up and leaves without a word.</span>
</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p>
  <span>From: Brad Colbert [colbertbrad@hotmail.com]<br/>
</span>
  <span>To: Nathaniel Fick [nathanielcfick@gmail.com]</span>
  <span><br/>
</span>
  <span>Date: Mon., Apr. 17, 2006 at 4:52 PM<br/>
</span>
  <span>Subject: re:please</span>
</p><p>
  <span>You tell me, I’m not the one who ran away, Nate.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>If I remember correctly, that was actually you. Sorry that living with the consequences of your own actions is getting too hard for you and now you want me to clean up the mess.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But that’s what it’s always been, right? Enlisted cleaning up after officers make mistakes.</span>
</p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>
  <span>Maybe he’s being too harsh.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>There were a lot of things that prevented </span>
  <em>
    <span>them </span>
  </em>
  <span>back then.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>There’s even more now.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Brad’s mom always used to say that time and distance make the heart grow fonder, and he always trusted her little words of wisdom— but now, he isn’t sure if this particular one is true.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The years and miles between him and Nate feel more like a canyon, an impasse, and every year it grows deeper and wider.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Even back then, there’d always been the looming threat of fraternisation, of DADT, the ever-haunting spectre of their careers being ruined.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Nothing has changed, really.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Perhaps Nate had been right— he should have left after Iraq.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Maybe he would have found relief there, in Nate’s arms, a world away from the crucible of war and his wasted youth.</span>
</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p>
  <span>From: Brad Colbert [colbertbrad@hotmail.com]<br/>
</span>
  <span>To: Nathaniel Fick [nathanielcfick@gmail.com]</span>
  <span><br/>
</span>
  <span>Date: Thurs., Apr. 21, 2006 at 2:19 AM<br/>
</span>
  <span>Subject: re:re:please<br/>
</span>
  <span>Draft</span>
</p><p>
  <span>I didn’t mean that. I’m sorry.</span>
</p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>
  <span>It never gets sent, just lingers in his drafts until he deletes all of their emails. It’s easier to pretend this didn’t happen if he doesn't have to see them in his inbox.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He still can’t sleep in his own bed most nights— the bathtub feels like a ranger grave, and there’s a comfort in that. It doesn’t hurt that it’s so far from anything he’d ever shared with Nate that it keeps the memories quiet.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Brad wonders when he will be able to be normal again.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It’s almost pathetic— he’s thirty-one years old and hung up on someone he put behind his career. Looking back, he’s pretty sure there’s a trend there, a pattern.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Maybe you should go see the chaplain,” Trombley offers, soft and quiet, before the platoon goes back to Fallujah, without him. He’s always been strangely observant, and Brad hates how the Corporal scrutinises him now, picking and poking and prodding at problems he can’t quite see.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“For the last time, Trombley— I’ve got no interest in crying about my issues to some limp-dicked POG who rolls through a country unarmed, taking up Humvee space. Besides, there’s nothing wrong with me.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The kid just watches him for a moment, unblinking and unsettling, before he shrugs.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Whatever you say, Sergeant.” </span>
</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p>
  <span>From: Nathaniel Fick [nathanielcfick@gmail.com]<br/>
</span>
  <span>To: Brad Colbert [colbertbrad@hotmail.com]</span>
  <span><br/>
</span>
  <span>Date: Sun., Jun. 25, 2006 at 6:14 PM<br/>
</span>
  <span>Subject: [no subject]</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Why did you ever respond to me if you didn’t want to talk this badly? That’s the one thing I don’t get. You could have just ignored the messages.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>From: Brad Colbert [colbertbrad@hotmail.com]<br/>
</span>
  <span>To: Nathaniel Fick [nathanielcfick@gmail.com]<br/>
</span>
  <span>Date: Mon., Jun. 26, 2006 at 4:43 AM<br/>
</span>
  <span>Subject: re:[no subject]</span>
</p><p>
  <span>I don’t know.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Sometimes I make decisions without thinking.</span>
</p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>
  <span>Brad has never been a coward.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Except he always was one.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Under fire, he’s ice-cold, but when it comes down to it, he’s always been too scared to say anything when things fall apart back home.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Maybe that’s his problem, always has been, lost one after another after another person in his life.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He doesn’t stop thinking about it, all the way through Iraq again, watching his old friends move on with their careers, the rest of the platoon shifting and moving and changing from the sidelines.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>That part of his life ended when Nate left, he thinks. Things never really fell back into place after that, when he said goodbye to the platoon before England and came back to most of them moved on in their lives.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>For some reason, despite the decade he’s been in the Marines now, he’s never quite gotten used to the shifting faces and ever-changing units.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>So instead he buries himself in his work. As H&amp;S company’s gunny, it seems like there’s an unending flow of paperwork and things to worry about.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>In his nightmares and his waking dreams though, he sees Nate—in the green curve of a wave as the sunlight shines through it, the soft, sad smile of a stranger in the MCX, when he makes eggs and has to remind himself to not scramble them, pouring sugar into a second mug of coffee even after all these years.</span>
</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p>
  <span>From: Nathaniel Fick [nathanielcfick@gmail.com]<br/>
</span>
  <span>To: Brad Colbert [colbertbrad@hotmail.com]</span>
  <span><br/>
</span>
  <span>Date: Wed., Jun. 28, 2006 at 12:36 PM<br/>
</span>
  <span>Subject: re:re:[no subject]</span>
</p><p>
  <span>No, Brad.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>You don’t.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>You’re nothing if not careful.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>From: Brad Colbert [colbertbrad@hotmail.com]<br/>
</span>
  <span>To: Nathaniel Fick [nathanielcfick@gmail.com]<br/>
</span>
  <span>Date: Sat., Jul. 1, 2006 at 2:19 AM<br/>
</span>
  <span>Subject: re:re:re:[no subject]<br/>
</span>
  <span>Draft</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Not with you, Nate.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Never with you.</span>
</p>
<hr/><p><br/>
<br/>
</p><p>
  <span>The bottles pile up, but he’s too tired to take them to the recycling center.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Leah raises her eyebrows at him when she comes over for lunch one saturday, but says nothing.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He’d have no justification for it anyways.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>So they just sit there, scattering light across his kitchen when the sun comes through in the evening, empty and mocking— reminders of what he’s failed to do.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Then again, he doesn’t do much of </span>
  <em>
    <span>anything </span>
  </em>
  <span>these days. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Wake up— sometimes in the bathtub or on the floor; rarely in bed— work. Come home, work, drink, sleep, rinse and repeat.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He passes days, weeks, and months like this.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Sometimes on weekends, if he has the energy, he’ll sit on his surfboard out past the break, bob up and down with the fluttering swells; wonder if he disappeared today, if anyone would come looking for him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But each time, he always paddles back to shore, rinses himself and his wetsuit and his board off with the garden hose, then goes inside and makes two cups of coffee and scrambled eggs.</span>
</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p>
  <span>From: Josh Person [jrperson@gmail.com]<br/>
</span>
  <span>To: Brad Colbert [colbertbrad@hotmail.com], Antonio Espera [tony.espera.11@yahoo.com], +20 More</span>
  <span><br/>
</span>
  <span>Date:  Sun., Jul. 9, 2006 at 4:15 PM<br/>
</span>
  <span>Subject: Reunion, Motherfuckers.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Clear your schedules, bitches. Save the date, one half (1/2) of a week, Rolling Stone and I planned out an extremely fun AND (this is very important to note) sexy reunion for us, at some point in February of next year. Let me know ASAP if you’re available and I’ll get official dates sorted out.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>With love, from Kansas City.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>From: Nathaniel Fick [nathanielcfick@gmail.com]<br/>
</span>
  <span>To: Brad Colbert [colbertbrad@hotmail.com]</span>
  <span><br/>
</span>
  <span>Date: Tues., Jul. 11, 2006 at 10:21 AM<br/>
</span>
  <span>Subject: Reunion</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Will I see you?</span>
</p>
<hr/><p>
  <span>He says yes.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He’s not sure why.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>They don’t really email again, at least anything substantial, but it’s early February when Nate Fick steps back into his life.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Brad’s sitting on the back porch, sipping at a beer and staring out over the backyard of the house they’re staying at, away from the party and watching the wide-open sprawl of the Mojave desert, the low scrub and the distant mountains when Nate sits next to him, a few feet away.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Too-far and too-close at once.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He’s </span>
  <em>
    <span>so different</span>
  </em>
  <span>, and yet exactly the same. He’s lost that military edge he’d always maintained when he was in the Corps, grown his hair out, and he’s dressed in a pale blue button-down he’s rolled up to his elbows. But those eyes are the same, and they burn into Brad.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>They don’t break the silence, but it doesn’t ache in the way it used to, the way Brad though it would this time. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>There’s an ease to it, one he thought long-lost to the years and the way everything ended. It’s hard to believe it’s been almost four years since Iraq, rolling through ghost towns and endless, muddy fields.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Hey.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>It feels so out of place he takes a moment to register Nate’s talking to him at all.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Nothing feels right, but he knows what he wants to say— an apology, a promise, a declaration— so he stays quiet instead; raises his bottle a little in a silent greeting.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Nate smiles anyways, showing his teeth as his eyes crinkle up at the corners because he always knew, always knows. “You look… healthy,” he offers, not looking at Brad, but rather out across the darkening desert beyond the halo of light pouring from the back porch.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Out here, it’s nearly silent, all the raucousness contained within the house proper and it’s easy to remember that most of them are just kids, still kicking about in their mid-twenties. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You too,” Brad confesses, quietly and gently, rotating his wrist ever so slightly to hear the bubbles fizz to the surface in his can of IPA. “Civilian life suits you.”</span>
  <span><br/>
</span>
  <span>Nate laughs at that, and Brad isn’t entirely sure if it’s bitter or not.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You can say I’ve gotten soft, Colbert. I won’t be offended.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>It’s Brad’s turn to laugh, bitten off and barking, uncharacteristically loud in the silence. “I don’t think you’re soft, Captain. You left.” He stops, let’s the unspoken words linger in the cool desert evening for a moment before taking a deep, shuddery breath. “I couldn’t.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It’s an apology in a way, he thinks. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Not a good one, but it’s something he should have said a long time ago.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I know.” Nate’s voice isn’t bitter, but Brad wonders, briefly, if it would have been easier if it had been. He just shrugs, and they watch the sun slip down past the distant mountains together in silence, like some mutated memory from Iraq. But this isn’t the sandbox. This is California, the beginning and the end for them.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I have ten more years,” Brad admits, “Before I get my 20 and retire.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Nate scrutinises him in the porchlight, pupils wide and dark. “I’ll be in California for business in a few weeks. San Diego.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Is that an invitation?” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Nate’s hand is warm and firm against his, thumb tracing over the fine scar on the back of Brad’s palm. “I’m leaving the text open to interpretation.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>In the cool desert night, Brad can feel the heat radiating off of his former CO, and he almost smiles.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’ll see you then, sir.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He can feel when Nate turns his head, the bridge of his nose grazing over Brad’s shoulder, hair tickling the exposed edge of his neck. “It’s just Nate, Brad.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Alright. I’ll see you then, Nate.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And this time, for the first time in a long time, he feels like he’s come home.</span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>I don't know if this is what you were thinking, but I hope you like it anyways. Happy holidays!</p></blockquote></div></div>
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